A Russian teenager living in London who dies during childbirth leaves clues to a midwife in her journal that could tie her child to a rape involving a violent Russian mob family.
A mild-mannered man becomes a local hero through an act of violence, which sets off repercussions that will shake his family to its very core in this action thriller.
A game designer on the run from assassins must play her latest virtual reality creation with a marketing trainee to determine if the game has been damaged.
A mentally disturbed man takes residence in a halfway house. His mind gradually slips back into the realm created by his illness, where he replays a key part of his childhood.
Director:
David Cronenberg
Stars:
Ralph Fiennes,
Miranda Richardson,
Gabriel Byrne
After getting into a serious car accident, a TV director discovers an underground sub-culture of scarred, omnisexual car-crash victims who use car accidents and the raw sexual energy they produce to try to rejuvenate his sex life with his wife.
After developing an addiction to the substance he uses to kill bugs, an exterminator accidentally kills his wife, and becomes involved in a secret government plot being orchestrated by giant bugs in a port town in North Africa.
When he acquires a different kind of show for his station, a sleazy cable-TV programmer begins to see his life and the future of media spin out of control in a terrifying new reality.
In the forests of the Pacific Northwest, a father devoted to raising his six kids with a rigorous physical and intellectual education is forced to leave his paradise and enter the world, challenging his idea of what it means to be a parent.
Director:
Matt Ross
Stars:
Viggo Mortensen,
George MacKay,
Samantha Isler
In London, the Russian pregnant teenager Tatiana arrives bleeding in a hospital, and the doctors save her baby only. The Russian descendant midwife Anna Khitrova finds Tatiana's diary written in Russian language in her belongings and decided to find her family to deliver the baby, she brings the diary home and ask her uncle Stepan to translate the document. Stepan refuses, but Anna finds a card of a restaurant owned by the Russian Semyon inside the diary and she visits the old man trying to find a lead to contact Tatiana's family. When she mentions the existence of the diary, Semyon immediately offers to translate the document. However, Stepan translates part of the diary and Anna discovers that Semyon and his sick son Kirill had raped Tatiana when she was fourteen years old and forced her to work as prostitute in a brothel of their own. Further, Semyon is the dangerous boss of the Russian mafia "Vory v Zakone", jeopardizing the safety of Anna and her family. Meanwhile, Semyon's ...Written by
Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
For the bathhouse fight scene, the scene was choreographed with the actors instead of stuntmen. The actors had to train in specific fighting styles chosen for their characters and it took two days to shoot on location in London. According to the DVD commentary, both Viggo Mortensen and David Cronenberg agreed that Nikolai had to fight his would-be killers completely nude. See more »
Goofs
In the last river scene, the baby is alternately crying or sleeping as the camera angle switches back and forth. See more »
Quotes
[first lines]
Azim:
He says "Christmas." So I say to him,
[in Turkish]
Azim:
"Should we go shopping?"
[English]
Azim:
The kid's 16. He says, "But uncle, it's Christmas."
See more »
"Eastern Promises" will take your breath away, churn your stomach, and then leave you with memories of unforgettable characters as well as perplexing thoughts about good and evil. David Cronenberg's movie about Russian and Chechen mobsters clashing in London is more than violent - it is brutal, savage, shocking. But do not expect just an action film, exploiting blood and gore. After you shake off its terrific immediate impact (there is no way to think while watching it), you realize that "Eastern Promises" is also a kind of morality tale, complex and important.
Only after you hold your breath, cover your eyes, and get through the movie do you realize how "Eastern Promises" manages to contradict Friedrich Nietzsche effectively. The German philosopher's "Beyond Good and Evil" denied the possibility of a universal morality. Cronenberg's film says that ethics - without expectation of rewards, in this life or a possible other one - can prevail even in the depths of great evil. The "History of Violence" director continues his subtle, subtext theme of upholding Anne Frank's belief that "in spite of everything people are really good at heart," and he does so without a smidgen of sentimentality.
There is no goodness in evidence as Viggo Mortensen's scary Russian mobster does every bidding of Armin Mueller-Stahl's chilling godfather figure, ruling ruthlessly over a family, which includes his son, a monster out of control, played brilliantly by Vincent Cassel (son of Jean-Pierre Cassel).
During a pre-release press tour, Cronenberg spoke of his wish to present "provocative, juicy stories... with complexity... showing that all monsters are sentimental and have some kind of relationship to a moral compass." That is all true, but what makes "Eastern Promises" so appealing is that there is no pop psychology (or worse, pop philosophy) in or about it. The film hits you over the head with its magnificently written story (Steven Knight, of "Dirty Pretty Things"), not with a message.
The title, on one level, refers to promises made to young women in Russia, luring them to the West, where the Mob enslaves them as prostitutes. It is one of these drugged and brutalized women whose death opens the film, and brings an English nurse (Naomi Watts) into the story.
As a multitude of promises, threats and tragedies unfolds, you get the maximum out of "Eastern Promises" with minimum advance knowledge of its story. Initially, that is. When you return to see it again, it won't matter that you'll know how it ends, you will want to re-experience what is certain to become a classic film. ("Eastern Promises" was shown at the Toronto Festival last week, opened in San Francisco today, goes nationwide on Sept. 21.)
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"Eastern Promises" will take your breath away, churn your stomach, and then leave you with memories of unforgettable characters as well as perplexing thoughts about good and evil. David Cronenberg's movie about Russian and Chechen mobsters clashing in London is more than violent - it is brutal, savage, shocking. But do not expect just an action film, exploiting blood and gore. After you shake off its terrific immediate impact (there is no way to think while watching it), you realize that "Eastern Promises" is also a kind of morality tale, complex and important.
Only after you hold your breath, cover your eyes, and get through the movie do you realize how "Eastern Promises" manages to contradict Friedrich Nietzsche effectively. The German philosopher's "Beyond Good and Evil" denied the possibility of a universal morality. Cronenberg's film says that ethics - without expectation of rewards, in this life or a possible other one - can prevail even in the depths of great evil. The "History of Violence" director continues his subtle, subtext theme of upholding Anne Frank's belief that "in spite of everything people are really good at heart," and he does so without a smidgen of sentimentality.
There is no goodness in evidence as Viggo Mortensen's scary Russian mobster does every bidding of Armin Mueller-Stahl's chilling godfather figure, ruling ruthlessly over a family, which includes his son, a monster out of control, played brilliantly by Vincent Cassel (son of Jean-Pierre Cassel).
During a pre-release press tour, Cronenberg spoke of his wish to present "provocative, juicy stories... with complexity... showing that all monsters are sentimental and have some kind of relationship to a moral compass." That is all true, but what makes "Eastern Promises" so appealing is that there is no pop psychology (or worse, pop philosophy) in or about it. The film hits you over the head with its magnificently written story (Steven Knight, of "Dirty Pretty Things"), not with a message.
The title, on one level, refers to promises made to young women in Russia, luring them to the West, where the Mob enslaves them as prostitutes. It is one of these drugged and brutalized women whose death opens the film, and brings an English nurse (Naomi Watts) into the story.
As a multitude of promises, threats and tragedies unfolds, you get the maximum out of "Eastern Promises" with minimum advance knowledge of its story. Initially, that is. When you return to see it again, it won't matter that you'll know how it ends, you will want to re-experience what is certain to become a classic film. ("Eastern Promises" was shown at the Toronto Festival last week, opened in San Francisco today, goes nationwide on Sept. 21.)